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welcome to the latest edition of liveblogging a bad erotica book from Kindle Unlimited. This time we have The Sting of Victory by S D Simper, "recommended" by @kvothbloodless

The main character is named Flowridia

The writing is clunky and awkward: "But enough [light] shone through to cast a shadow upon the secluded cottage, that of a wolf coated in mud and grime."

Green light shines out of the pores of Flowridia's mother, who happens to be an evil swamp witch

that reminds me, I should put on a face mask I got from Lush that makes me look like a swamp creature

She threw a knife with perfect accuracy through her mother's throat while she was doing some magical transformation still unclear exactly what she shifted into the description was both too much and totally unclear

The pacing is also really bad. She killer her mother, who had killed her lupine animal companion, and now in the exact same tone/pace Flowridia is wandering desolate and also being stalked by a demon. Apparetly she is alone and half-starved and has been wandering for weeks, but it's only been one paragraph so as a reader I have no sense of tension, or how deep Flowridia's emotional and physical suffering goes

Awkward worldbuilding exposition is awkward

I don't care if this is a fantasy world with magic and the point of this book is to go "awooga", you can't throw together a royal coronation and celebration in several days' notice. That just does not happen, even with all the preparation and contingency plans in the world, and the coronation ceremony itself only for the new queen and her guests why tf would a gardener's apprentice (which Flowridia is now) be one of those honored guests if it isn't a grand public ceremony?

New name alert! NOX'KARTHA

Angels in this world are French

There are too many fantasy races being introduced at the same time, with character names attached and none of them really matter right now and it's just confusing

I have many questions about social structures and I do not think any of them are going to be answered

The queen wears a magic gem that doubles as a mood ring on her voluptuous bosom

Oh yeah, the love interest showed up but she was boring and fuckin Flowridia didn't even talk to her just ogle so meh

It has been several months and her baby wolf new magical companion is still puppy sized

She made tea and muffins to bring to the dark elf diplomat who is the love interest. I'm still too distracted by clunky writing and the nonsensical social rules

Th queen made a policy decision because she has a crush on a dignitary from this other kingdom. Solid basis for government

I am tickled by this clunky bit of innuendo in which everyone else believes that "playing chess" is a euphemism and it is therefore implied they used a candlestick as a dildo

So one year for charity different pro athletes get asked to participate in a live game based on one of those “how well do you know your partner” games but instead it’s “how well do you know your rival” and participating means you get to raise money for a charity of your choice and obviously Shane and Ilya want to promote the Irina Project so they agree and go up against other current famous rivals from other sports

And Shane and Ilya discuss ahead of time that obviously they’ll have to just play things off as they usually do, light hearted chirps back and forth and what not, “winning” is just for the show and won’t impact how much money gets made for their charity so it doesn’t matter. Except then they get there and become overtaken by the need to Win and Be the Best and they are the best. So without needing to discuss changing the plan, as soon as the questions start they lock in and decide that actually they have to demolish everyone else

The other rivals are laughing and making jokes at the questions but Shane and Ilya are deadly serious and the host starts to get a little weirded out by the fact that they actually know the answers and aren’t just saying things like “how many goals last season? Probably one less than me haha” and actually have each others stats memorized

Because the audience is loving it they go to a lightning round that’s just Shane and Ilya and it’s now the usual couple game questions and they’re still getting them right because they can make excuses for knowing later, right now is about Winning

“What is Shane’s favorite breakfast?”

“Kale protein shake with a scoop of peanut butter and a handful of blueberries.”

“Ok um, what is Ilya’s favorite breakfast?”

“Two sausage egg McMuffins with an extra slice of cheese and hashbrowns.”

“What is something on Shane’s bucket list?”

“Sleeping in one of those see through igloos under the northern lights.”

“What is something on Ilya’s bucket list?”

“That thing where you feed giraffes at a zoo.”

“Ok last one. I think we all know Shane’s answer is former paramour Rose Landry, but who do you think is the most famous person Rozanov has ever slept with is?”

*through teeth gritted so tight he is in danger of chipping one* “Probably a model. Or something.”

“… Yeah, let’s go with that.”

😞

touch ducks.

"We the People," inspired by illuminated manuscripts. All the flowers are beautiful but have meanings .

Narcissus for narcissists, rue for mourning, helenium and weeping willow for tears, poisonous datura, bitter sheep sorrel, snake-mouthed adder's tongue.

We the American people, surrounded by those who would keep us 'in our place.'

"We the People," mixed media embroidery

-ancient roman posca: water, red or white wine vinegar, honey, salt, herbs (coriander, mint, thyme)

-switchel: water, ginger, vinegar, sweetener, lemon, salt

-ayran: yogurt, water, salt, mint

-sees the reports of the heatwave in Europe-

Guild: -chilly silence-

President: so the challenge to you all is a quilt with your interpretation and/or feelings towards our current “democracy”

Guild: 👏👏👏

How I spent my July 4th.

At the start I thought stitching “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” for the last quarter would be therapeutic

I was correct.

I have one more line of embroidery and I think it needs to be bolder and messier than I started it.

Hard to tell in this light, and without ironing it, that the embroidery does get gradually bolder as it goes. Two strands at the top versus 5 at the bottom (6 for the started to be redone final line).

Not bad for first time doing appliqué.

What they did have was a single spare bed in the small, comfortable, quiet, wildly expensive facility for girls with eating disorders.

They asked each of the young women currently living there if it was acceptable that I might occupy a bed in one of the rooms for a while, just the long weekend while I was waiting for a doctor's evaluation. I hadn't been violent, I had gone with the cops without putting up any fight at all, and I was still and I was small and all those things were sufficient for me to be deemed safe. So up they sent me, to somewhere high in Western Psych, above the smells and sounds of the denser-packed wards, above where the care workers were harried and frustrated, to a gentle space with seven or eight young women in it.

I was five foot three, and I weighed about 115 pounds. I was underweight for my frame, as a fair amount of that weight was martial arts muscle; I would probably have been ten pounds heavier if I were healthy, with the amount of activity I got.

I was at least two inches shorter than pretty much every other young woman there, six or seven inches shorter than one of them, and I had at least thirty pounds on several of them. The tallest was not allowed to walk, she had to sit in a wheelchair and be pushed around, because her condition was so advanced that the motion would undo what good her hard work had done.

And over the course of the four or five days I was there, multiple of them came up to me alone to quietly tell me that I had the *perfect* body, and they wished they could be as skinny as I was. That I needed to live, because I was beautiful, and if they were as beautiful as I was, they wouldn't need to be here.

Their eyes were on me all the time, in the hours that I wasn't sleeping. I spent a lot of time sleeping, and we took our meals separately (I not needing to be monitored while I ate, and not having my food weighed), but we spent a fair amount of time sitting around in the little shared living room space, talking about movies and magazines and books we'd loved, talking about our families. I didn't talk about my family; they didn't pry.

They were all so fucking nice.

And I could have broken any one of them over my narrow knee. They each thought they were bigger than I was.

Their brains lied to them, every time they looked at a mirror. Every time they looked down at their own thighs. What they saw was not what I could see. They had bright, beautiful eyes in dark hollows, and I could count their vertebrae, could see their ribs winging when they breathed, could see the motion of every tendon on the backs of their hands.

They weren't celebrities. They weren't being paid to have particular bodies, nor were they deep in the toxic sea of having strangers take photos of them to sell to gossip rags if they stepped out of doors in old jeans. They had families and loved ones who were doing everything that they could to protect them, to uplift them and help them be healthy. They were just everyday people--a nurse, a couple of students, a couple of recent college grads, a young woman who had decided it was time to really get help because she wanted to be a mother--and still they'd been so injured by the neverending fucking deluge of body-image bullshit that they were dying of it.